


all i want

by compendiary



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Christmas, Domestic, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 06:37:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16948887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compendiary/pseuds/compendiary
Summary: jeno and jaemin move into their new apartment on christmas eve so they can spend christmas day together first thing in the morning.





	all i want

**Author's Note:**

> named after the iconic christmas tune [all i want for christmas is you](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXQViqx6GMY).

Jeno makes the mistake of entrusting Jaemin with the task of setting the date for their big move. They’re moving off-campus into a place of their own, a cosy one-bedroom studio apartment within walking distance of their university, and they’re just learning how to operate as full-fledge adults. Some mistakes are to be expected, but Jaemin’s decision-making skill leaves a lot to be desired.

Jeno doesn’t hurry Jaemin for the details of their move, choosing instead to pack up his old dorm room corner by corner, making sure to sort out items that he absolutely needs and things that he can live without—he doesn’t want their new apartment to be cluttered with stuff that he won’t look at twice. He only asks Jaemin when they’re moving at the beginning of December, expecting Jaemin to name a random date in January, but Jaemin doesn’t.

“On the 24th,” Jaemin replies as he plays with Jeno’s hair while they’re lying in Jeno’s bed.

It’s a cramp super single bed, perfect for one person but stuffy for two. They make do, however, like how they’ve been making do ever since they started dating. They find space for each other by layering one body on top of the other’s. Currently, Jeno has half his body lying on Jaemin’s chest while his legs rest slanted onto the seat of his swivel chair.

“Next month?” Jeno asks, fumbling with his Rubik’s cube.

“No, silly, this month.”

Jeno’s fingers stop moving. “How did you get the movers to agree to work on Christmas Eve?” Jeno questions, feeling his facial features contort into a frown. “Jaemin...”

Jaemin waves him off, promptly clamping a hand over his mouth before Jeno can start chiding him on his choice of date. “I thought it’d be nice to celebrate Christmas at our own place,” Jaemin says, releasing Jeno when Jeno quiets down. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have our own little tree and our own space for the holidays?”

Although it sounds idealistic, Jaemin’s picture doesn’t sound all that bad.

They spent their last Christmas in the dorms, mingling with friends during a Christmas dinner hosted by the international students’ society because they didn’t want to go home. Their families don’t celebrate Christmas at home anyway, so it made sense to celebrate the season with their friends instead.

It does sound nice to wake up with Jaemin on a comfortable bed on Christmas morning. They’ve had to settle for invading each other’s personal space whenever they share a single bed, so it’ll definitely be comfortable to finally have their own sides to a bed made for two. Jeno smiles.

Okay, it does sound nice.

“Mmhm,” Jeno hums, finally bought over by Jaemin’s poor planning. They might have some trouble enlisting additional help from the movers on the day itself, but they’ll make do.

Everything usually works out with Jaemin by his side, anyway.

 

* * *

 

On the moving day itself, Jeno wakes up bright and early on the chilly Christmas Eve morning. The cold bites at his skin when he draws the curtains to crack open the only window in his dorm room. The heater did its job a little too well last night.

He looks around at his belongings all stuffed into labelled boxes, counting three large boxes and two luggage bags. He already brought his unwanted items to the relevant donation points, hoping that they’ll help make someone else’s Christmas this year. His room is barren at this point, leaving only whatever the room came with when he moved in at the beginning of the academic year.

The movers come right on time with Jaemin’s things already stuffed into the back of the pickup truck. It feels nostalgic to finally move on from what used to be a structured dormitory life dictated by curfew and regulations.

They get their boxes and bags into the apartment with help from the movers and they give the two older men who helped them generous tips on account of the holidays. Thankfully their apartment came furnished, so they don’t have to hurry to the store to get anything for the time being.

Jeno is surprised when he takes a walk around their new apartment, finding a short artificial Christmas tree in the corner of the common room already adorned with small ornaments and a string of fairy lights. It’s awfully short, not even a foot tall, but it somehow makes the empty living room look homely.

Jaemin bids a warm goodbye to their movers at the door before closing it, turning around to give a loud cheer when the door locks itself. “Home sweet home!” Jaemin shouts, running at top speed over to Jeno and tackling him onto the couch.

They land onto the couch with a loud thud and the back of Jeno’s head collides with the armrest of the sofa, causing him to groan in pain. “Ouch, Na!” Jeno exclaims, reaching behind his head to rub at the sore spot. “What’d you do that for?”

Jaemin peppers Jeno’s grimace with light kisses and hurried apologies, planting one last sloppy kiss onto the tip of his nose before sitting up at his feet on the couch. “Aren’t you excited?” Jaemin asks, reaching out to give Jeno a hand to pull him up as well so that they’re sitting face-to-face. “Did you see my little surprise in the corner?”

“It’s a tree without any presents under it,” Jeno retorts, but his heart is warm all the same.

Jaemin took the time to sneak in here and set it up before they arrived and that’s enough for him. The lack of presents under the tree is the least of Jeno’s worries. He’s touched that Jaemin thought to make their move on Christmas Eve special.

Jeno smiles, leaning forward to bump noses with Jaemin. “When did you do this?”

“How did you know it was me? Maybe Santa Claus set it up.”

Jeno laughs at his childish boyfriend, shoving him away lightly so he can get up on his feet. “Shouldn’t we start unpacking? There might be a little present that I can dig up to put under our tree…” he trails off, looking at the huge mound of boxes piled in their living room. “If I can only find out which box it’s in.”

Jaemin comes to stand next to him, wrapping an arm around his waist as Jeno continues eyeing each box with intent. “We’ll start slow. Household items first. Most importantly, bedsheets first.”

Jeno raises an eyebrow at him. “You’re not going to bother with unpacking, are you?”

“Nope,” Jaemin replies with no remorse detectable in his words. “I think I deserve a nap.”

It’s barely 10 in the morning, but Jeno only rests his head on Jaemin’s shoulder, nuzzling his nose into the thick cotton of Jaemin’s hoodie. “That actually sounds a lot better than unpacking,” he admits, caving to the idea of a lazy Christmas Eve.

Jaemin scoffs, poking him in the side. “And you say that I’m irresponsible.”

Jeno cranes his neck upwards to nip at the skin under Jaemin’s jaw like a cat, making the latter squeak in surprise. “You’re a bad influence.”

Against better judgement, they spend the rest of their morning curled up against each other on the couch, not even bothering to spread out their bedsheet until they wake up from their nap in the evening. It’s a slow morning, filled with warm kisses and low murmurs of teasing, and Jeno doesn’t even care that they have to eat cup noodles for dinner because the take-out restaurants are all closed for the holidays.

It’s nice to have Jaemin attached to him by the hip on such a cold day. Jaemin makes him his instant meal for the night and they sit on the ground at the coffee table to eat, watching a variety show on Jeno’s laptop because they haven’t tried fiddling with the TV cables yet.

The night ends with them sprawled out in bed, Jaemin exclaiming in glee that he can finally take up as much space as he wants, before Jeno jokingly pushes him off the edge of the bed and laughs.

Jaemin glares at him when he climbs back up, attacking Jeno with a flurry of tickles in all his sensitive spots.

There could be worse ways to spend Christmas Eve.

 

* * *

 

Christmas morning is no different from the last one they spent together. Jeno wakes up to Jaemin’s low whining for him to get out of bed, the latter sticking his icy hands up Jeno’s t-shirt to make contact with Jeno’s skin, causing Jeno to awake with a jolt due to the cold.

“Stop touching me,” Jeno groans, annoyed. He swats Jaemin’s hands away but it’s too late, he’s already wide awake. Jeno can only stare at his boyfriend through half-lidded eyes as Jaemin bounces up and down on their bed, continuing to pester Jeno to start their day.

Jaemin is incredibly excited for a holiday that he didn’t grow up celebrating. “Wake up, you ugly kid,” Jaemin beckons, rubbing his palms together to warm them before bringing them to both sides of Jeno’s face. He squishes Jeno’s cheeks together. “Wake up!”

“I’m awake!” Jeno argues, shaking Jaemin’s grip off his face. “What do you want?”

“It’s Christmas morning!”

Jeno sighs, slowly pushing himself into sitting position on the bed, the covers still warm and inviting as he reluctantly shrugs them off his body. “What’s on the agenda?” he asks, sniffling a bit to relieve the stuffiness in his nose. “We can’t even cook because we haven’t unpacked.”

Jaemin clicks his tongue. “That’s where you’re wrong. Go wash up in the bathroom, I already laid out your toothbrush and everything. Meet me in the kitchen in 10.”

Jeno does as he’s told, obediently dragging his heavy limbs to the bathroom where his toothbrush is waiting for him, toothpaste already applied in a thick layer. There’s a sticky note on the side of the mirror that reads “ _Good morning sunshine!_ ” with a drawing of a sun, topped off with sunglasses. Jeno smiles at it, shaking his head as he wets his toothbrush because that’s typical Jaemin.

Jaemin is too much of a morning person for anyone to handle.

After Jeno’s done with his short morning routine, sans a shower because he took one before bed last night, he sees Jaemin in the kitchen fiddling with their stove.

Jaemin somehow managed to locate what little cooking equipment they own—a trusty nonstick frying pan nicked from Mark after he moved out of the dorms last year and the spatula that came with it. There’s an opened box of pancake mix sitting on the counter, but no mixing bowl in sight. Jaemin’s doing a terrible job with unpacking.

Jeno wordlessly rummages through an opened box labelled ‘Kitchen’ in thick permanent marker. He finds a large bowl and a couple of plates and he pulls out a plastic bag containing their eating utensils. This will do for now. They have a few things they’re going to have to get from a household store, but that can wait until after the holidays.

He doesn’t want to imagine the commotion occurring in their local Ikea right now.

“You’re missing this,” Jeno comments, bringing the bowl to Jaemin, who gratefully accepts it. “Do we even have milk for the mix?”

Jaemin worries on his bottom lip. “Well...” he trails off, gesturing vaguely. “No, but I’m pretty sure we can replace it!”

Ever the optimist, Na Jaemin.

They replace the milk with hot cocoa, producing pancakes that look an unappetising shade of brown. Jeno doesn’t feel hungry looking at them, but Jaemin plucks a piece off with his fingers and attempts to feed it to him and he doesn’t have the heart to say no, so he tries a bite.

It’s acceptable. Not delicious, but edible.

“I’ve spoilt you with the rest of my cooking,” Jaemin chides when Jeno makes a face after tasting the pancakes. “A little flexibility wouldn’t hurt, you know.”

“I didn’t say it was bad...” Jeno reasons, hugging Jaemin from the back as the latter flips a pancake. He buries his face in the crook of Jaemin’s neck. “But I guess you do spoil me.”

Jaemin chuckles, and Jeno feels the vibration of his vocal cords through the base of his neck. “I’ll finish off the pancakes. You said you had presents to put under the tree, didn’t you?”

Jeno releases his grip on Jaemin, bounding off to search his boxes for the gift he got Jaemin a few weeks ago. He finds the wrapped box at the very bottom of one of his luggage bags, thankfully not dented by the move. He personally stuck the wrapping paper on although he has ‘butter fingers’ according to Jaemin, painstakingly folding the decorative paper over each corner.

Jeno brings the box in his hand, slowly crawling over to the corner where their mini Christmas tree is. Jaemin already left a few boxes there himself, the presents piling up taller than the tree itself. There are two Christmas stockings on the floor as well, probably the ones they took home after last year’s Christmas party at the dorms.

“No fair, you’re making me feel bad for only preparing one gift,” Jeno complains, arranging their presents on top of each other based on size. His little box for Jaemin sits at the top of the pile.

“Don’t worry, the bottom two are for for the Secret Santa arrangement.”

Jeno whistles. “Right! I forgot about that.”

“I knew you would,” Jaemin states, having finished cooking. He brings over a plate piled high with pancakes, setting it down on the table. “That’s why I got one for you to bring. It’s a Christmas gnome!”

Jeno makes a face. “A Christmas gnome? What’s that?” That doesn’t sound like something Donghyuck would like—oh, Donghyuck is going to kill him.

Jaemin uses a pair of chopsticks to rip apart a piece of a pancake, sitting on the floor and feeding Jeno a bite, which Jeno instinctively takes. “It’s a gnome, except for Christmas...” he replies, scratching the back of his head as he retracts his chopsticks, picking up a bite for himself. “I don’t know! I got it at that novelty store.”

“Oh! You mean that creepy figurine with a beard and no eyes?”

Jaemin laughs. “I mean... if that’s how you want to describe him...”

Jaemin lowers his chopsticks after they’ve eaten a few more pancakes, crawling over to Jeno to reach behind their Christmas tree. He pulls out a hairband with a pair of antlers on it. “Put this on,” he offers, holding it out to Jeno.

“It’s Christmas, not Halloween.”

“Does it matter? It’s cute.”

Jeno wants to say no again, but Jaemin has a pout hanging on his lips that makes it impossible for Jeno to deny him. “Why’d you buy this when you know very well that I won’t want to wear it?” Jeno asks, sighing as he takes the antlers from Jaemin anyway.

He knows resistance is futile.

Jeno lets Jaemin put the hairband on him, Jaemin’s fingers deftly combing the strands of hair to frame his face. Jeno shakes his head after like a dog drying itself after a bath.

“See? You look cute,” Jaemin announces, leaning back to admire Jeno, his fingers coming back to rearrange the misplaced strands of hair. “I got it because I knew you’d put it on eventually.”

Jeno huffs. “If I’m going to have to wear something stupid, you’re going to have to, too.”

Jaemin laughs, leaning back to cross his arms. “The ugly kid makes a lot of demands, huh?”

‘Ugly kid’ is such an unusual nickname to give your loved one, but Jeno supposes that Jaemin’s never been one to stick to conventional concepts. Plus, Jaemin often follows up his teasing of Jeno being supposedly ugly by contradicting himself—complimenting Jeno’s looks directly after—so Jeno honestly doesn’t take much offence with the name-calling.

Jaemin pulls out a Santa hat and puts it on his head, happily jingling the bell at the tip of the hat. “Don’t worry, it’s a couple’s costume!” he enthuses. “Wait till you see the gift I got you.”

 

* * *

 

Their two-person gift exchange starts and ends within five minutes before they’re scheduled to leave to Chenle’s house for the Christmas get-together. They spent the remainder of their time sitting around the tree by watching Christmas movies on Netflix and sharing a mug of hot cocoa—promptly forgetting that they didn’t exactly swap gifts yet.

Jaemin makes Jeno rip open his large, heavy present before Jeno’s adequately dressed, insisting that Jeno won’t have to wear anything before opening his gift. It ends up being two very thick, very itchy-looking Christmas sweaters, one in green and one in red. Jaemin tells Jeno that he can have the first pick on colours.

Jeno kind of wishes that this gift didn’t exist.

“It’s going to be a tradition from now on,” Jaemin says, gleefully slipping the green sweater on over a white t-shirt after Jeno wordlessly made his choice. He doesn’t seem to mind the itch, twirling around for Jeno to appreciate the details of the knitting.

It’s really not that pretty. It just looks… _itchy_. Jeno is never one to deny Jaemin, however, and so he complies. He makes the mistake of wearing the sweater without another layer underneath, and he soon learns just how grave a mistake that is when they get into the taxi.

“Oh!” Jaemin exclaims as the driver pulls away from their apartment complex. He looks over at Jeno with wide eyes, arms wrapped around the boxes they’re bringing over for their friends later. “You didn’t get to give me my gift!”

Jeno immediately forgets about how uncomfortable his outfit is, quickly reaching to his back pocket to pull out the box. “You’ll definitely be able to guess what it is,” he admits, feeling slightly bashful as he holds it out to Jaemin.

There’s a mischievous glint in Jaemin’s eyes that confirms his suspicions.

The box contains something that Jaemin heavily hinted on wanting, always stopping for two minutes whenever he walked past it in the shop’s window to gaze at it. He’d point at the display, gushing over how beautiful it looked, then nudge Jeno in the ribs repeatedly until Jeno verbally agreed.

Jeno can finally get some peace and quiet whenever they’re out and about now that he’s finally bought it for him.

Jaemin gingerly unwraps the present, peeling off the small piece of tape Jeno pasted. Jeno watches as Jaemin’s fingers slowly unveil the velvet box underneath the wrapping paper, his eyes sparkling as he sees what’s underneath. “Lee Jeno,” Jaemin singsongs, punching him in the arm lightly. “You’re a man after my own heart, aren’t you?”

“Shut up,” Jeno mutters, scratching the back of his neck. All this waiting is making him nervous. Jaemin should just open the box already.

“Are you sure this is what I asked for?” Jaemin teases, moving the other presents in his lap to the side so he can inspect Jeno’s gift for him. “How sure are you?”

“A hundred percent sure.”

Jaemin laughs and he finally opens the box, gasping when he sees it. “Yup, Lee Jeno, you got the right thing,” he mutters, holding the box up next to his face. “Oh my God, it’s so pretty. Doesn’t it look like it was made just for me?”

Jeno resists the urge to shove his boyfriend out of the car. Jaemin can be insufferable sometimes. “Who even asks for their own promise ring?” Jeno asks, slightly exasperated. He reaches over to take the box from Jaemin, taking out the gleaming silver band seated on the plush velvet.

It was awkward going into the shop to buy the rings—Jeno consulted Renjun who told him that he _must_ get them in a pair—but Jeno did it anyway because he knew that Jaemin would look at him with _that_ look on his face. The very same look that made Jeno realise in high school that he doesn’t really care to spend the rest of his life with anyone else.

Jaemin looks a lot like his future.

“Who said it was a promise ring?” Jaemin asks, admiring the band on his finger after Jeno helps slip it on. Jaemin indicated that he wanted it on his ring finger although Jeno sized it for his index finger, so Jeno hopes and prays that it’s not too loose (it isn’t). “It’s so pretty.”

Jeno shows Jaemin the identical band around his middle finger, wiggling his fingers around as he holds it out to Jaemin. “I took a hint.”

Jaemin breaks into a grin, the edges of his eyes crinkling as he tugs Jeno towards him by his hand, bringing their faces close as he rubs the tip of his nose against Jeno’s. “My little Rudolph is a lot smarter than I give him credit for,” he praises, leaning back afterwards to pinch the tip of Jeno’s nose. “Your nose is all red like during allergy season.”

Jeno sniffles. “Must be the sweater.”

Jaemin laughs, intertwining their fingers together as he rests their hands in his lap, looking at their rings fondly. “This is nice,” he whispers, turning to meet eyes with Jeno after a while. “I can’t wait to show this to Jisung.”

“Please don’t. He won’t let me hear the end of it,” Jeno groans.

“Exactly.”

Jaemin’s laughter is airily light, and Jeno decides that any amount of teasing is worth it as long as he gets to spend every Christmas just like this with Jaemin by his side.

**Author's Note:**

> it’s not christmas time yet but... who cares? this is my gratuitous nomin christmas fic as contribution to my community. nomin are soft cuddly christmas boyfriends and no one can say otherwise.
> 
> twt: [@lucashaeyadwae](http://twitter.com/lucashaeyadwae)


End file.
